"
"Don't think they'll be a deputation of citizens waitin' to 'scort us to
a hotel, eh?" said another. His sarcasm was too obvious to require
an answer.
Smith went on: "Then at daybreak we'll start f'r home; at least I
will."
"Well, I'll be dummed if I'll take two dollars out o' my hide," one
of the younger men said. "I'm goin' to a hotel, ef I don't never lay
up a cent."
"That'll do f'r you," said Smith; "but if you had a wife an' three
young 'uns dependin' on yeh-"
"Which I ain't, thank the Lord! and don't intend havin' while the
court knows itself."
The station was deserted, chill, and dark, as they came into it at
exactly a quarter to two in the morning. Lit by the oil lamps that
flared a dull red light over the dingy benches, the waiting room
was not an inviting place. The younger man went off to look up a
hotel, while the rest remained and prepared to camp down on the
floor and benches. Smith was attended to tenderly by the other
men, who spread their blankets on the bench for him, and by
robbing themselves made quite a comfortable bed, though the
narrowness of the bench made his sleeping precarious.
It was chill, though August, and the two men sitting with bowed
heads grew stiff with cold and weariness, and were forced to rise
now and again, and walk about to warm their stiffened limbs It
didn't occur to them, probably, to contrast their coming home with
their going forth, or with the coming home of the generals,
colonels, or even captains-but to Private Smith, at any rate, there
came a sickness at heart almost deadly, as he lay there on his hard
bed and went over his situation.
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